70s gay bar
Timeline of London Bars and Clubs
1720s
The Golden Ball (Bond's Stables, off Chancery Lane).
Jenny Greensleeves' Molly House (Durham Yard, off the Strand).[1]
Julius Caesar Taylor's Molly House (Tottenham Court Road).[2]
Plump Nelly's Molly House (St James's Square, St James's).[2]
Royal Oak Molly House (Giltspur Street, Smithfield)[2]
Three Tobacco Rolls (Covent Garden).
1724Mother Clap's Molly Residence, closed 1726 (Holborn).
1770s
Harlequin (Nag's Head Court, Covent Garden)
1800s
1810The White Swan, Vere Street (Vere Street)
1832Admiral Duncan (54 Elderly Compton Street, Soho)
The Hundred Guineas Club (Portland Place)
1866 The Coleherne, gay from the 1950s?, closed 24 September 2008 (261 Earls Court Thoroughfare, Earls Co
Being gay in the 70s and 80s in Cardiff: Discreet bars, marches, strippers and discrimination
There was a first-floor bar called Sirs in Cardiff only men were allowed in. You needed a key and it had a dancefloor that lit up.
Cardiff once had a bar where only male members were allowed, and to acquire in you needed a key.
Sirs was on the first floor of 60 St Mary Street in Cardiff city centre - where well-known restaurant Le Monde is now.
It was a men's only venue which was so subtle a woman who worked downstairs went months without realising it was there.
It had an owner established to all, and a dancefloor that lit up - described as existence like something from Saturday Night Fever.
On evenings at work, one woman who worked on the earth floor watched ice buckets disappear never knowing where they were going.
Sirs' key policy meant no-one had to stand in the street queuing for entry so customers could experience safe in a very different climate to today.
Memories of Sirs and other aspects of gay existence in Cardiff in the 70s and 80s, before the cultural changes that have made life for LGBTQ people today very different, have been mutual as part of a project being run by Pride C
This is not an exhaustive list of gay bars in San Francisco in the 70’s. You can find that information elsewhere. There were just too many gay bars for me to visit all of them. Here, I will only speak about bars and clubs that were significant to me. Most are gyrate bars or clubs because I acquire never been one to just long to sit around in a block to drink.
The Stud, originally at 1535 Folsom, was the first same-sex attracted bar, or first bar for that matter, that I started going to. I came there with Jim Archiquette and was only 18 at the time. I remembered what Darlene had said when she and Chuck had brought me to a the military base bar- she had told me to walk in like I owned the place and just ignore the door man who might be review ID.’s. This worked beautifully well at The Stud. It probably didn’t offend that I was young and sweet. In those days, none of the gay bars seemed to obsessed with checking ID’s.
When you entered The Stud, there was a long bar on your left with burning candles behind the bar. It was very rustic with rough wood decor. On the right, boxes of beer were stored up against the wall and I think there may have been a wood bench over these, where you c
Raising the Bar in 1970s Gay Cardiff
The 1970s were a boom time for Welsh gay tradition. With the passing of the 1967 Sexual Offences Behave – guided through Parliament by Welsh politicians Leo Abse MP and Residence Secretary Roy Jenkins – gay sex between men over 21 was no longer a criminal offence.
While many people still faced homophobia, particularly in smaller communities, this new freedom gave rise to a thriving gay social scene in larger towns and cities – with the first openly lgbtq+ bar opening in Cardiff in 1972.
As well as giving LGBTQ+ people the ability to harvest freely and communicate themselves without uncertainty or restraint, the capital’s 1970s lgbtq+ scene gave a new lease of life to some of the city’s handsome Victorian common houses. Here are a few of the most significant places in this history of Cardiff’s nightlife.
The King’s Cross
Cardiff’s first official gay bar operated from 1972 to 2011 at 25 Caroline Street. For decades it was ‘the centre of gay life in Cardiff’, according to historian and composer of A Tiny Gay History of Wales Daryl Leeworthy. The Victorian pub had been called The King’s Cross since it opened in 1874, but it was only after it became a gay lock that
Heaven’s attractions may have been its music and lights, but its prime purpose was for cruising and Norman was determined to prevent straight punters from taking over, enforcing a rigorous gay men-only door policy. His concerns were justified by the excitement Heaven’s launch created. The London Evening Standard, examining Heaven’s opening night, deliberated: “Heaven’s biggest headache could be in deterring London’s non-gay discophiles who could end up trying to pass for gay to get past the stylish bouncers at the disco’s equivalent of the Pearly Gates.”
Heaven’s arrival coincided with new directions in disco. The beats got faster, mixing became essential and electronics replaced live instruments. Gay disco, Boystown or hi-energy (named after Evelyn Thomas’s hit of the same name), became the soundtrack to the clone scene that took over Heaven and gay Earls Court. Adams in Leicester Square became Subway in 1981, claiming to provide London’s first American-style cruise club. Musically, it offered a progressive mix provided by John Richards (the Hot Trax remix of Yoko Ono’s “Walking on Thin Ice” being a favourite). With its strict over-21s, men-only policy, it also had a backroom